For Keeps
by Rashaka
Summary: How Zuko copes with life-after-rebelling-against-Daddykins. Gen, no pairings, drama. No spoilers after 3x13. A series of shortfics in the Western Air Temple.
1. Zuko, Aang: The Path

**Summary:**

**Spoilers:** **3x12-3x13  
**

**Pairings:** Gen, friendship.

**Setting:** The Western Air Temple, after 3x12 and 3x13, but BEFORE BOILING ROCK

**Notes:** This is a **gen **fic, focusing on Zuko's interactions with various members of the gaang. There is no shipping beyond a couple light references to Sokka/Suki, and Aang/Katara unresolved tension. I do have a couple scenes with Zuko and Katara, but they are meant to reflect the relationship as it is within the show: tense, with an undercurrent. I think trust and forgiveness is an important thing to explore between those two characters. However, the majority shipping in this is actually going to be Toph/Zuko friendship and Zuko/Aang friendship.

I wrote most of these months ago, but took a while to polish a lot of them up. I know some of this doesn't match what we saw in the episodes with regards to Aang's training, but I'm imagining this as a sort of between-the-scenes series.

This will be a series of shortfics, some as small drabbles others 2000 words, all having to do with the gang in the WAT and how Zuko copes with life-after-rebelling-against-Daddykins. I am writing it to fit around the WAT / FBM episodes, so there are no spoilers beyond that. And please don't spoil me in reviews.

* * *

**- Zuko, Aang -**

**1**

**The Path**

Aang began with breathing exercises.

After the dragons, after the fanfare and the dance of war, Zuko sat the boy down and told him that breathing was what really mattered, in the moment that decided victory or failure. Now that Zuko had his fire and Aang no longer feared his own, it was time to go back to basics. Back to breathing, and waiting, and meditating. Master yourself to master the fire within you. Aang was impatient, but that was nothing new, and he knuckled under Zuko's stern expression.

"We'll begin with these. " The dark-haired young man brought forward four candles, thick and heavy wax slabs retrieved from the inner temple storage rooms, melted slightly at the bottom so they sat affixed to earthenware dishes. He set three to the side, then set one in front of Aang. "It's not the traditional beginning for firebenders, but it's the method my Uncle used when he took over my training."

Zuko scooted back a ways and off to the side. "I want you to light these with your breath of fire. No hand or foot gestures. Rather than producing fire in punches or kicks, producing a small amount from your mouth will give the bender a clear grasp on the connection of breath and fire, a relationship fundamental and vital to the understanding of firebending."

"That's a great idea!" Aang said. "Ran and Sha didn't really mention anything about that, but I've seen you breathe fire before." He looked sideways in either direction, then leaned toward Zuko to confess: "It looks pretty fun."

Zuko tried to keep a serious decorum, but the corner of his mouth twitched a little at the boys enthusiasm. "You'll get there. Your experience with airbending should make the transition easier."

Aang was ordered to light the candle, then extinguish it. Multiple times. He was told to hold it in one constant size and temperature, then told to enlarge and shrink the flame according to the rhythm of his own breathing. At one point Aang had deliberately breathed in and out so often he felt light-headed, and Zuko allowed him to earthbend for a while and get it out of his system.

When he returned, fresh from a skirmish with Haru and Toph, he moaned about more breathing exercises. "It's just the same thing over and over again. And I burned my lip last time."

"Did you get Katara to heal it?" Zuko asked. Aang nodded. "And do you think that you've got the knack of the breathing down now?" Aang nodded again, confident. Zuko took a deep breath.

"Good, because you're not allowed to have Katara heal you next time."

"What?" Aang yelped, leaning back from Zuko and the unlit, half-melted candles. "But the fire burns my lips! And my tongue. I have to eat with those."

Zuko sat upright and stiff, across from the candles. His arms were folded. "Then you have two options: One, don't burn your mouth. You know what it feels like now, so you have some incentive not to. I believe in you."

"But--"

"Two! Learn to heal your burns with your own waterbending abilities."

"But only Katara can do that," Aang protested. His voice recited the next phrase like a mantra: "She's special!"

"I thought Sokka said that all of the Northern Water Tribe women used their bending to heal?"

"Well, yes, but Katara's a master."

Zuko puffed a sigh. "So are you, Aang. Katara is strong, and skilled, but you're the Avatar. There's no waterbender on the planet who can match you, and no skill you can't be taught. Next time you burn your mouth, you can run off to Katara, but you're not allowed to let her heal it. Get her to show you _how _she does it instead."

A ripple of something disquieting passed over Aang's face at the words _run off to Katara_, but the reason for it wasn't Zuko's business. "Aang?" he asked after a short pause.

"I agree," Aang said. "You're right--I can't rely on Katara to always be available when someone gets hurt, and I should learn to take care of myself."

The prince raised his eyebrow, "Not exactly what I meant, but that's true too. Every skill you gain will help you in fighting off my father. Now, watch this. Until you can do what I do without burning yourself, you're not ready to move onto the flashier stuff."

Zuko told him that they would practice beginning fireballs when Aang could hold the flame from his breath in one shape and maintain a constant temperature for an hour. The Avatar was rushed for time, and he had all the impatience of a child, but Zuko felt that control was what Aang really needed first. Thanks to the dragons Aang knew how to access the fire, so power wasn't a problem, and the forms would come easily enough in time.

"But techniques and power are pointless and dangerous without a guiding breath," the firebender told him. "Control is the most valuable thing I can teach, and it will be the hardest lesson to learn. For both of us."


	2. Zuko, The Duke: Reservoir

**Setting:** The Western Air Temple, after 3x12 and 3x13, but BEFORE BOILING ROCK

* * *

**- Zuko, The Duke -**

**2**

**Reservoir**

The first morning that Zuko pushed himself out of bed, down the hall, and into the dawn haze, he found the Duke already awake and chasing Momo. The boy dropped the lemur at first sight of the prince, and the animal squawked as it flipped mid-air to land on its paws. It clambered back up the Duke's shoulder, chattering an indignant lecture as it went. Zuko stared at the Duke, and the Duke stared at Zuko.

"Hello," the older boy said as kindly as he could, and gave a tentative smile.

"Are you really the Fire Lord's son?" The Duke had all the verbal grace that boys his age are expected to have, which isn't very much.

Zuko's smile faltered. Eventually, he answered, "Ozai is my father, but for the last few years I was raised by my uncle." He added, "He is a good man, and you might meet him some day if you stick with Aang."

The Duke's cherub features twisted in a way that suggested he found the idea of meeting the Fire Lord's brother either implausible or unappealing. He changed the subject. "What are you doing up so early?"

"I rise with the sun," said Zuko, affecting the patient, matter-of-fact voice all adults developed for explaining things to children. He'd learned his from a young boy in an Earth Kingdom village, at quite a price. "Partly because I'm a firebender, but partly because I like to exercise in the morning. It's cooler, and quieter, than any other time of day. How come you're not sleeping in?"

"Sleeping in?" the Duke echoed, as if he'd never considered it before. "But… it's morning."

Zuko stared at the kid, who couldn't be more than seven, and marveled at the inexhaustible energy of children.

"Would you help me exercise?"

"How?" asked the Duke, suspicion returning instantly.

"Sit on my back while I do push-ups. Please."

So it happened: the prince's first tentative friendship in the group beyond Toph. After this diplomatic exchange, Zuko began every morning with a regimen of push-ups, the littlest freedom fighter sitting cross-legged on his back. For the first few sessions the Duke spent his time poking the young man with his stubby fingers, trying to find a pressure point to make the fire prince instantly collapse on his face, or at least annoy him into reacting. Or maybe to fall down dead—the Duke kind of liked Zuko but he had lost things in the war too.

The firebender kept at his push-ups, ignoring every spiteful, experimental, or playful jab. Zuko considered it part of his training, thankful that the little boy had no idea how actual pressure points worked. Even this harassment was an act of welcoming, in its own way.


	3. Zuko, Toph: Second Star to the Right

**Setting:** The Western Air Temple, after 3x12 and 3x13, but BEFORE BOILING ROCK

* * *

**- Zuko, Toph -**

**3**

**Second Star to the Right**

The first time Zuko acquiesced to carrying Toph, her feet still delicate from his fire, he did not realize--though perhaps he ought to have--that giving in to Toph once meant giving into her for the duration of their relationship, for the rest of his natural life. He no sooner picked her up against his back than she hooked one arm around his neck, yanked his hair, and scrambled onto his shoulders, where she continued to sit for the remainder of the afternoon. Her yellow-calloused heels bounced against his ribs as they walked, and Zuko thought again of the contradiction she presented.

The heir of Bei Fong was, to the plain eye, a good two inches smaller than Aang now that the boy had begun to grow, and considerably lighter. She projected such an air of solidity, confidence, and fortitude, it wasn't until she demanded to be carried around like her status required that Zuko truly recognized her for the child she was. Although at times she acted more like an adult than any of the group, save perhaps Katara, she was the same age as Aang and could be just as easily distracted.

Her latest source of distraction was naturally The Fire Nation Prince, reformed Son Of The Enemy, He Who Burns Toes. While admittedly small, Toph was still too large and too old to sit on anyone's shoulders without appearing faintly ridiculous, but Zuko didn't complain. He bore her weight, and neglected to remind her that her high born status only seemed to matter when he was present and available for ferrying. With patience Prince Zuko listened to Toph's commentary on events of the temple—typical subjects varied from Sokka's sword use to Haru's inept bending in comparison with her own—and generally thanked the spirits of the dawn stars that she was willing to pay him some attention and be his friend.

Even now, after returning the Avatar whole and unharmed from the city of the Sun Warriors, Zuko got precious little friendship from the others. He and Aang were getting along somewhat better as their firebending progressed, but the tension between himself and the rest of the party ebbed and flowed from one hour to the next. In the case of the water siblings it mostly flowed. Zuko did not hold it against them.


	4. Zuko: Wolf Call

* * *

**Wolf Call  
**

At night Zuko liked to sit on the cliff above the temple. Though he hid it moderately well, the terraces unnerved him with their sloping floors and inverted roofs. It was a structure built for airbenders, and so contained staircases that lead to nothing and ramps that ended in terminal drops. He didn't have a problem with heights in particular—he got a certain thrill out of climbing, in fact—but one couldn't spend multiple days in the Western Air Temple without being a little overwhelmed by the architecture's quiet psychological attack on gravity-bound thinkers.

When Zuko would leave the sanctuary of upside-down construction and ascend to the plateau, he liked to bring his heaviest robe with him and lay it out on the smooth rock surface, then stare up at the stars. He took his time in identifying the constellations, all the more familiar now that they were technically inside Fire Nation territory. These were the stars Prince Zuko had grown up with, and when he was very young Lady Ursa would take him and his sister to the topmost tower, where they would spread blankets on the roof and recite the mythology of the sky. He had forgotten most of the stories, but it cheered Zuko to take up this habit again, even if he was by himself. He liked to imagine the act as a silent homage to his mother, who might be looking at the same moon, somewhere in the distance.

As he lay, the prince sorted through the sounds of night fall: the rustle of cool sea winds rising over the hills from miles away and swirling down like a flood, propelled by pressure and heat until they rolled leisurely across the hot plateau; the clicking and clacking orchestra of cicada-snakes, so new and hungry in the spring months. Zuko liked best when he heard the call of worm-wolves, distant stunted cousins to the dragons. All through spring and summer they roared and whistled as they hunted, scaring predators and rivals away from the lair they would hibernate in come autumn. Having seen a true dragon, Zuko knew that worm-wolves were a shadow of their ancestor's grandeur, but he still found fascination in the elongated body, the wolf's skull, the snout like a dragon, and patches of fur decorating the cheeks, ears, wings, tail tip, and feet. With four short legs, and a pair of enormous but delicate wings, its body was three feet long with tail comprising another two feet. They were ugly creatures by an artist's standards, but they outlived many other species, and most people.

He'd seen them a few scant times in his exile, on the islands nearest the Fire Nation, but as a child he'd only seen one, skulking in circles within its cage. Now, out in the wild terrain and all the nature that Zuko seemed to have experienced everywhere except his own lands, he could hear dozens of the beasts, calling a symphony that, from the plateau, was loud enough to keep the world awake.

These sounds evaporated in canyon below, leaving behind a stillness—the stillness of death and abandonment—meticulously sheltered by looming rock walls. In the temple, everything was muted and empty, and it was only when Zuko was actually in a room with the others that he could be sure he wasn't completely alone. The air nomads could not have chosen a better spot to hide themselves from the world, for all the good it did them in the end.

Most nights Zuko found he slept better if, before slipping into bed, he took a brief excursion topside and reminded himself that its protection was an illusion: they were neither safe nor alone. There was a whole world alive up there, breathing and hissing, calling out to the stars, waiting for the Avatar to return.


	5. Zuko, Haru: Under Fingernails

**Under Fingernails**

Haru, the earthbender who _isn't_ precocious or small, never drops his eyes when he enters a room with the former prince. He remains amiable, even makes conversation sometimes, but he watches Zuko like a pike-eagle and takes care that Zuko knows it. The firebender holds comfort in the fact that Haru, at least, is discreet about his distrust. The young man knows _of_ Zuko but he doesn't know Zuko, so good manners—the kind reserved for strangers—vie with suspicion, and all his interactions with the prince are careful.

Where Zuko is concerned, Haru can be at times haughty and cold, at other times good-natured and sympathetic. He likes to keep the inventor's son company, and he puts the Duke to bed on regular schedule every night. It is something the others never remember to care about.

If he looks beyond the congenial eyes and the easily-amused persona, Zuko can see the anger inside Haru. It is the same anger that burns in Jet and Katara and even The Duke—but the earthbender has conquered that anger, has channeled and beaten it. He's grown to accept it and live unhindered by it. It took Zuko three years to reach a kind of peace, and he's held onto its edges for less than a month.

In this, Zuko admires Haru, even though they are not friends, and will never be brothers.


	6. Zuko, Katara: Salvage

This scene probably gets jossed terribly by "The Southern Raiders", which I won't be able to watch for another few hours. Since I haven't actually seen it yet, I'm hoping I can skate by and put up this chapter anyway.

I know it's a bit rambly, but I really wanted to talk for a bit about motivations and intentions.

I should probably also mention that these are not strictly in order. They actually jump around in time, and some of them are happening at roughly overlapping times, in the same day, or many days before or after the next.

* * *

**Salvage**

It didn't matter what started the fight, only that the fight was happening again, over and over, and Zuko was so tired of speaking to deaf ears.

"And now you pull a stunt like _this_," Katara said, "and you expect everyone's forgiveness. Just because you're looking for 'redemption' now that you've gotten over your evil ways."

"No! I--" Zuko hesitated, but sooner or later this conversation would happen. He swallowed, and tried again. "_No. _It's not like that."

"Then what is it like?"

"I'm not trying to 'redeem' myself', at least, not the way you're talking about. I didn't get over my evil ways. I wasn't _evil_."

Katara's face had transformed into the cold, stony expression of a temple statue, and she looked on the verge of leaping to her feet, surely to argue that last statement in as violent a way possible. Zuko put his hands out placating, jumping forward to finish his thought before she could argue with him. Unlike all the times before--all those confidence-crushing encounters where every sentence came out upside down--the right words were with him now. He could feel them bubbling up: all the things he'd been trying to say to Aang, to Mei, to Uncle. Maybe he could say them to Katara in their place.

"My uncle said that good and evil are at war inside me, and he was right," Zuko spoke. Katara rolled her eyes; the prince continued unabated.

"But he was also _wrong_. My feelings were at war for the last three years--no, longer than that. Ever since my mother disappeared. But it was ignorance and selfishness I battled, not evil. I sent an assassin after you, and I was prepared to take responsibility for that, but I told myself he'd finish the Avatar quickly, and that it was better than being my father's prisoner. It was a lie to myself, and I'm not proud of it. But I've never tortured anyone. I don't eat foxpuppies for dinner or spend my waking hours plotting how to murder goddesses. I'm not Zhao, and I'm not my sister. I don't enjoy the pain of others."

Zuko began to pace, his conscious mind not realizing the actions of his feet. Katara had settled down, silenced either by the sincerity of his words or her own curiosity, Zuko couldn't say. But he seized the moment she was giving him.

"For a long time, I believed serving my father and becoming his heir was the right thing to do. I thought I was protecting my country, and being the person my family wanted me to be. That was the good course, the _honorable _course. And that meant acts of war: trying to take Aang prisoner, infiltrating the North. I even thought my Uncle was betraying our cause."

This last admission was delivered with shame painted across Zuko's face. Many betrayals had occurred that night, something the girl across from him was all too aware of. He swallowed his shame and pressed forward.

"I was sure that if I could please my father everything would be okay again. I'd have my family, we'd win the war. It was selfish of me, and foolish. I've realize since that I was wrong, that Uncle was right, and that the right and good thing to do is to help you--because Aang knows what's best for the world, not the Fire Lord."

His pacing ceased, and he turned to look at the girl to whom his actions over the last months had brought so much pain. He wanted her, just once, to understand.

"I know this is not an excuse. I'm aware of every wrong thing I did, and I know that saying_ 'It seemed right at the time' _doesn't change the people I hurt or the damage I did. That's why I'm here. Not because I'm recovering from some kind of...of... evilness condition. But because here is where I can do the most to fix the damage I've caused."


	7. Zuko, Iroh: In acres, leagues, miles

* * *

**In acres, leagues, miles**

On the first night Zuko dreamed of his uncle, and of his own guilt and unworthy behavior.

He knew his uncle had escaped, he _knew_ and fiercely believed that the man was strong enough to endure, no matter how many times he'd ungraciously called him fat or lazy. Iroh was strong, Iroh would survive, _had _to survive, because Zuko's own penchant for surviving any obstacle (not whole or unmarked, perhaps, but still surviving) was in no small part a product of the three years with the Dragon of the West.

But still Zuko dreamed of him, of his trials and possible glories. He had no thought for where Iroh might have gone (of course, he'd done nothing to deserve such privileged information), but he needed to believe that wherever Uncle was, he was well.

Zuko had to hope, because the fear that Iroh was beyond his reach forever almost crippled him if he didn't.


	8. Zuko, Sokka: Nightblindness

**Nightblindness**

The night Sokka discovered Zuko sleepwalking was the first time he saved Zuko's life, and for a long while he couldn't quite believe he had. He didn't save him because they were friends, and they didn't start being friends right after. As ideas go, friendship from a non-Aang firebender sounded unattractive and cruel to one's stomach. No, Sokka didn't rescue him because he needed another friend. He did it for the obvious reasons: Aang needed a firebending teacher who wasn't a rabid killer, and Sokka wanted someone to help carry food back to camp because Haru hated hunting and the others were too young. Additionally, it would have been pure irresponsibility to let the jerk die before Sokka learned how Zuko had disarmed him half a minute into their spar, when he _clearly_ had the superior weapon. Even Zuko's crappy life was worth that trick, so when the boy hung from a cliff Sokka hadn't needed to think too hard before playing hero. It happened almost, but not entirely, like this.

When the noise of rustled blankets and boots scraping against stone pulled Sokka from the soft world of seal penguins and fishhooks, it was morning, but barely so. The air was black as pitch, dawn still hours away, but the stars had begun to set and dew was out. Focusing on the sound of someone's door opening across the hall, Sokka pulled himself up from his bed and made his own way into temple corridors.

He followed Zuko quietly, puzzling as he went on the character of Fire Nation citizens and the eccentricities of royalty. Zuko never turned to confront Sokka, even with young hunter-tracker gave up on stealth and simply walked behind the prince. Zuko touched nothing as he walked—doors, walls, furniture. He glided around and past every object, his head bent and his mouth curling around unspoken words. Sokka had not seen a person sleepwalk before, and relished this opportunity to satisfy his curiosity on the subject while garnering a bit of leverage for future blackmail. He tried talking to the older boy, asking where he was, and to his smug delight Zuko answered.

"We're in the summer house. I thought I'd burned it down, but father must have had it rebuilt."

A thousand clever quips came to mind for that, but with no audience to appreciate his wit, he decided to play along. "Why did you burn it?"

"I was angry, of course. It was Mother's house but she didn't need it anymore."

"Why didn't she need it?"

"Because she's gone, idiot." Sokka was certain the firebender didn't know who he spoke to, but he found himself annoyed anyway. He was fifty times smarter than Zuko—_he_ was awake right now, for example.

"Where'd she go?"

"Away." Zuko's pace began to increase; Sokka trotted up beside him. They were getting closer to the terrace-level entrance, and the night air might wake Zuko entirely before this situation could be fully exploited

"Why?" he asked.

"Treason."

Sokka liked this woman already. "What happened to your face?"

The sleepwalking boy's eyes, half-open and lidded, screwed up and his breath came quicker. These questions were upsetting, Sokka knew, yet the prince's voice remained soft and calm, as if he were remarking on tea or the color of sea foam.

"Father did it. You know that, Azula. You were in the first row."

Sokka slowed and then stopped, watching the sleepwalker go. His stomach twisted, his throat shuddered, and he had to lean forward slightly to overcome the faint wave of nausea. Why was the Fire Nation even allowed to exist? Why couldn't Aang turn into a spirit monster and scoop the entire country off the map? This was definitely not worth waking up for, and to say he regretted asking was an understatement.

By the time he looked up again, the scarred boy had vanished. With a mild curse Sokka turned the last corner and pushed through the doors to the terrace. The wide circles of inlaid stone fanned outward, and in the dim, disappearing light of the stars he could just make out Zuko's figure standing on the balcony ledge, talking to a pillar. Sokka cursed again, loud this time, and sprinted across the marble.

The young warrior ran fleet and true, as swift and dark as wolf on the tundra. He got to the ledge, but not in time. He watched Zuko fall before his eyes, a shadowed silhouette sinking into a well of greater shadows. When Sokka finally made it to the balcony rail he looked over and saw his enemy's son, wide awake and terrified, hanging by his life with five rapidly weakening fingers.

"Give me your other hand!" Sokka commanded. Zuko grimaced, swung, and reach upward. His reluctant companion grabbed him, secured him by the shoulder, grunted, and shoved backward with a mighty heave The boys tumbled over the rail to sprawl on cool stone.

Zuko was took deep breaths, sitting in silence. Sokka hoped he wasn't still asleep, because if he was, Sokka was going to punch him awake. He might punch him anyway.

"Why the _hell_ didn't you mention sleepwalking when you asked to join our hero gang?"

Zuko replied, "I dunno," and looked as surprised as anyone, which only irritated the other boy more. "I haven't done it since I was eight or nine."

"Was that when your mother left?"

_"What?"_

"You sleep talk, too."

The firebender grimaced—an action that was unpleasant on most faces and only made worse by his disfigurement, which Sokka now had full view of even in the dark—but let it drop.

"This won't happen again."

"You're right," Sokka said, "I'm going to lock you in your room in at night."

Zuko grunted. "Like hell."

"Like tomorrow. A flattened sifu is useless to Aang. But don't worry, I won't let my sister toss the key over the cliff or anything. I'm not a mean guy."

"Generous," Zuko replied dryly, conscious that he could always escape by window if need be. "You're a credit to your tribe."

"You're welcome," Sokka agreed.


End file.
